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This research investigates the relationships among renewable energy consumption, economic growth, and financial development in five sub-Saharan African nations utilizing panel data from 2000 to 2020. Econometric methods are used to ascertain the existence or absence of cross-sectional dependence and the short-run and long-run connections between the following factors: Pesaran cross-sectional dependence (CD) and cross-sectionally augmented IPS (CIPS) unit root tests, pooled mean group (PMG), and dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) estimations. The presence of cross-sectional dependence is found and represented with the CIPS unit root test. No significant short-run relationship is found between the variables of the study, yet a significant long-run relationship is present among them. A positive relationship exists between CO2 emissions and financial development, while financial development and renewable energy consumption are found to have negative relationships with CO2 emissions. The study also supports the scale effect of the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis. Additionally, no causality is found among the variables, and impulse response and variance decomposition estimation are carried out to recommend future effects. Policy implications of findings are discussed, with accompanying suggestions.

The integration of sustainable practices into infrastructure projects under the auspices of public-private partnerships (PPPs) is vital in the attainment of United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Since the inception of the SDGs in 2015, the attention of world has been shifting towards more sustainable practices and it is essential that the conventional performance measurement models on PPP projects also adapt to the trend of sustainable practices. Therefore, This study aims at reviewing and operationalising sustainable performance measures for the PPP infrastructure projects. A systematic literature review (SLR) methodology was utilised in this study. The research process began with the search, retrieval and selection of thirty-three (33) journal articles. Thoroughly, the selected articles were contently analysed to form key themes that form the basis of this research’s findings. The outcomes of this review demonstrate twenty-seven (27) most critical sustainable performance criteria of PPP projects such as the lowest project costs, green index, disability-friendly inclusion rate and carbon emission per project among others. Although, the study is limited to few journal articles, it provides theoretical and practical understanding of integration of sustainability in PPPs. Further, it gives a list of relevant research gaps for further studies. This study contributes to the benchmarking and management of sustainable performance assessment of PPP projects.

Abstract In the summer of 1989 a survey was conducted to collect data on household-energy consumption in Indian cities. The survey was conducted in three urban areas of varying sizes. The end-uses considered were cooking, water heating, lighting, air cooling, entertainment, cold storage, and washing/laundry. The surveys involved examination of the types and quantities of energy used to satisfy each of these services. The survey sample in each of the three cities was broken down by income group, allowing for a careful examination of the influence of household income on lifestyle patterns and related energy use choices. Among the houses surveyed were 75 households in Pune, India, that took part in a 1982 household energy study as well. The re-surveying process allowed for an analysis of longitudinal changes in residential energy use. Based on the survey findings, a number of recommendations are provided for improving the provision and use of energy in urban households in India.

Abstract The earth’s climate is changing, with global warming attributable to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions driven by economic and population growth. Human systems and ecosystems vary in their exposure, mitigation and adaptive capacity, and vulnerability to various forms of climate change. Once mitigation and adaptation efforts have been exhausted, vulnerability remains. Data compiled by the University of Notre Dame covering over 100 nations in 2016 were used to construct a new composite climate change vulnerability index that features endogenously generated weights to aggregate vulnerability indices across six vulnerable sectors. These weights have the potential to inform policy aimed at allocating resources to reduce the cost of limiting vulnerability. The new composite vulnerability index, whose weights differ across sectors and across nations, is compared with the Notre Dame vulnerability index, which uses weights equal across sectors and constant across nations. Although the two indices agree on the identity of the most vulnerable nations, there is a statistically significant difference between the two indices. In addition, a nonparametric statistical test failed to reject the null hypothesis that one sectoral index could be deleted from the composite index without significant loss of information. This also has potentially important policy implications.

The upsurge in higher education is considered a key determinant for enhancing green growth. Moreover, ICT development is also the main catalyst of green growth. This research explores the role of higher education and ICT on green growth for China from 1995 to 2020. The study employs auto-regressive distributive lag (ARDL) approach for short-run and long-run estimates of green growth. The effect of higher education and ICT on green growth is significantly positive in the long run and short run. The outcomes of the empirical models reveal that financial inclusion is positively associated with green growth in both long run and short run. Moreover, renewable energy consumption is found to have a positive impact on green growth. The findings thus point to the need for policies that promote human capital and ICT infrastructure as a way of accelerating green growth.

Abstract Using country level panel data from East Asia over the period 1998–2011, this paper examines the implications of international production fragmentation-induced intermediate goods trade on the link between energy consumption and carbon pollution. The paper focuses on the interaction effect between energy consumption and trade in intermediate goods on carbon emission. The empirical results presented suggest that international trade in intermediate goods decreases the positive impact on carbon emission of energy consumption. When compared with the trade in final goods, intermediate goods trade contributes to a greater decrease in carbon pollution resulting from energy consumption. These results confirm that the link between energy consumption and carbon pollution in East Asia is significantly affected by international production fragmentation-induced trade in intermediate goods. The results presented in this paper have some important policy implications.

The aim of this paper is to identify Granger causality between energy consumption and economic growth in post-communist countries in the period 1993 to 2011. Bootstrap panel Granger causality test was used as a research tool in order to accommodate for countryspecific heterogeneity and to avoid the problem of cross-sectional dependence. The analysis allowed for the verification of the hypothesis regarding the links between economic growth and energy consumption in nine countries. The hypotheses were confirmed: the growth hypothesis in three countries and the feedback hypothesis in one country.

AbstractSoil micronutrients are capital for the delivery of ecosystem functioning and food provision worldwide. Yet, despite their importance, the global biogeography and ecological drivers of soil micronutrients remain virtually unknown, limiting our capacity to anticipate abrupt unexpected changes in soil micronutrients in the face of climate change. Here, we analyzed >1300 topsoil samples to examine the global distribution of six metallic micronutrients (Cu, Fe, Mn, Zn, Co and Ni) across all continents, climates and vegetation types. We found that warmer arid and tropical ecosystems, present in the least developed countries, sustain the lowest contents of multiple soil micronutrients. We further provide evidence that temperature increases may potentially result in abrupt and simultaneous reductions in the content of multiple soil micronutrients when a temperature threshold of 12–14°C is crossed, which may be occurring on 3% of the planet over the next century. Altogether, our findings provide fundamental understanding of the global distribution of soil micronutrients, with direct implications for the maintenance of ecosystem functioning, rangeland management and food production in the warmest and poorest regions of the planet.